New Year’s Food Traditions: Eating for Luck and Money

All around the world, people ring in the New Year with foods said to bring good fortune. Anney and Lauren talk through traditions from their own homes and beyond.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to Food Stuff. I'm an Eeries and
I'm Lauren vocal Bum and today we're talking about New
Year's foods, which we kind of already talked about a
bunch of times on the show. Yeah, like champagne or toasting,
maybe a wall sail bowls involved, perhaps jelly donuts. Yeah,
but there are all their food traditions. There's a lot

(00:29):
of them in fact, oh just just just a few. Yeah,
if you want to know more about those things, We've
got a whole episodes on them. Yes, but but New
Year's foods Yeah, so wait, New Year's foods, what are they?
What are they? I guess their foods that you eat
on New Year's easy section done excellent. So in my
family on New Year's Day, we would eat ham, black

(00:53):
eyed peas, and turnip. Greens are colors. The ham represented
the look, the black eyed peas coins and the turn
greens or collards, which was based on whatever my mom
liked more that year at the store. That was your
dalla dalla bills. This is all you could eat luck
and money for the coming year. And my brothers were
quite picky, as I mentioned before, but my mom was

(01:13):
able to get them to eat things they generally wouldn't
with vague promises of wealth and luck in their future.
I thought everyone in the US did this, but upon
some research, it seems it is mostly a Southern tradition. Yeah.
I literally never heard of this until I moved to Atlanta.
I did not. I didn't know that anyone did anything
like that. Huh. Yeah, well, there are a couple of

(01:35):
variations on it. Um the greens representing that green specifically
folding bills and kind of specifically green. So it's probably American. Yeah,
apart from collars or turn up, some people use cabbage,
sauer kraut, kale, shard, or mustard greens. Really, any leafy
green will do. For coins, black eyed peas are the

(01:56):
traditional choice, but any beans are peas are acceptable. Lentils
are a popular option. Yeah, Lentils might be a loner
from Italy, where their coin like shape also makes them
a popular New Year's food. They are frequently cooked with
him are some other type of pork for seasoning, because
that's how we do it in the South. Be careful vegetarians,
you ever visit here? Oh yeah, yeah. If if a

(02:18):
menu item doesn't say doesn't specify vegetarian, it probably has
pork in it. Probably also the pork is good for
some extra luck, all the luck you can get and
ask for that luck. The pork is you're look And
this seems to be because pigs root forward. We're not
really sure, but that's the reasoning that Lauren and I
came across the most. Yeah, like like other animals scratch

(02:40):
backwards or move kind of willy nilly when they're looking
for food, but pigs root forward. Yes, as the Pennsylvania
Dutch say, the pigs root for it. Someone is like
a quote. It's something people's head. It could also be
because in Eastern Europe and Germany it was seen as
sort of a food safety thing to butcher large animals
when it was cold outside, usually November. There's a painting

(03:03):
and a cathedral in Germany of a pig being slaughtered,
with the Latin inscription underneath reading everybody rejoices when November
kills its pig. Because this meant fresh cuts a pig
and maybe even reserving some for New Year's as opposed
to the preserved pork that people depended on throughout the
rest of the year. It was kind of like a
celebration fresh fresh pork. And this is also perhaps why

(03:26):
sauer kraut is a tradition for some people. It takes
six to eight weeks to firm it, which if you
kill the pig in November and you want to have
some acidity to cut that fatty pork, the timing works
out pretty perfectly. The longer the strand of crowd, by
the way, the longer your life. That's what the superstition
tells us. Some people think the fatter the pig, the
fatter your wallet. It's amazing how much of this, like luck,

(03:49):
is tied to wealth. Oh yeah, there's also a German
saying fine, which literally means had a pig. It culturally
means that you've had a lucky time. Supposedly this comes
from medieval times in what's now Germany and or Austria,
when if you managed to breed a whole bunch of
pigs in one year, where sometimes if you had any

(04:10):
number of pigs at all, you know that was a
really fortunate and awesome thing. Yeah. A way of wishing
someone luck in Germany in Austria is to say final schweine,
which literally means much pig. I love that. Yeah, so
clearly the South is not the only place that sees
pork as lucky. Yeah, and we'll talk about some of
these other traditions around the world in a bit. And

(04:35):
we never did this at my family New Year's meal.
But cornbread is another thing that is often part of
the Southern tradition, both as a symbol for gold and
because for a lot of Southerners, turn up greens and
black eyed peas without corn bread is unthinkable. Why would
you even bother? I mean, what are you doing with
your life? There's actually a really long history to this

(04:56):
lucky meal or um, at least the black eyed peas
part of it. As far back as five CE, the
town mentions that at the time black eyed peas were
eaten to celebrate the Jewish New Year, but actually no,
it mentioned finn a Greek seas. However, there's there was
this like sounds like esque mix up with the word

(05:17):
meaning to increase or expand and the word for black
eyed peas, So some people started eating black eyed peas
as part of the New Year's celebration. Yeah. From there,
it's possible that the tradition was brought to Georgia in
the US, not the country, and the seventeen thirties with
the arrival of the Sephardic Jews one possibility. Another has

(05:40):
to do with the Civil War. As the story goes,
when Sherman's Union army ransacked Confederate food supplies, they left
pork and peas untouched, thinking this was feed for animals.
I want to know what animals getting pork, but probably
other pigs. Okay, Well, anyway, the Confederates drew started to

(06:00):
associate these foods with luck because it helps from them
them survived the cold winters and later reconstruction. Probably not true, though.
Another telling of this goes that the black eyed peas
symbolize the emancipation of slaves, which happened officially on the
New Year after the Civil wars end. But why, you

(06:21):
might wonder, because the first inmesticated. They were first inmesticated
over five thousand years ago in Africa and came over
to the US on slave ships. They were fairly common
in the diet of slaves. Another thing worth pointing out.
These foods were staples for families not making that much money.
They were cheap and pretty easy to grow, even in winter.

(06:41):
And if you're thinking, but wait a minute, black eyed
peas don't really look like coins. Nothing like coins, really, know.
I kind of got a coin shape, I guess on
the top of it. Yeah, And I couldn't really think
of anything off the top of my head that would
be better. Maybe like rounds of potatoes. Um. Anyway, some
folks think that eating black eyed peas is a way
to show off how how much humility you have. I

(07:01):
love that, show off how full you are, and also
how not vain you are. Apparently there is an expression
that some people somewhere say backs up this assertion. Eat
poor on New Year's and eat fat the rest of
the year. Okay. Another interpretation to the inclusion of peas

(07:22):
or beans in this traditional lucky meal is that they
expand a lot when exposed to water, representing expanding well.
And apparently some people count three hundred sixty five peas
are three hundred and sixty six on a leap here,
one for each day of the year, and if you don't,
you'll only be lucky equivalent to the amount of peas

(07:43):
you eight, And if you eat more than three sixty five,
it converts the number you went over to bad luck days.
In some traditions, you leave a p on the plate
on top of the three sixty five or three six
to share your luck with someone. I've never heard of that.
That seems like a lot of work. I generally these
days just make a soup with this stuff. Um and

(08:05):
any day now that money is gonna come, it's gonna
come raining. Now. I bet you it's gonna be all
thanks to you that the turn up greens in my
soup I eat on New Year's Day. Another way a
lot of people do it is hop and John, which
is a dish that combines rice, black eyed peas, and
ham or bacon. If you really want to go out

(08:26):
all out on this business, you put a dime in
the pot, although I'm not sure how lucky you'll feel
if you accidentally swallow a dime or choke on one
to ruin something else for you. This dish originated with
West African slaves. The first published recipe appeared in Sarah Religeous,
The Carolina Housewife in seven but slaves were certainly making

(08:48):
it before then. We already know rice was a big
crop for South Carolina. Peas were a cheap way to
feed slaves on the journey over and once they arrived.
Um As for the name. Nobody is entirely sure where
it comes from, but most food story and think it
comes from the French words for dried peas popjan. Yeah.
It's part of a really interesting history of food for

(09:08):
people of color in the South that will definitely have
to explore more of at a later time and date.
Among the US, certain areas in the US with large
Scandinavian populations you might see the tradition of eating pickled
herring at midnight. Since the herring was easily pickled, healthy,
and a vital part of Northern European trade, it was
kind of a It was kind of a big deal. However,

(09:30):
the fish itself was unpredictable and how it would migrate,
to the point that the appearance of one was seen
as the carrier of divine message. Eating herring on New
Year's was like a prayer for prosperity. Also, it's silver
color and scales might hearken to money, money, money, money, money.
Uh yeah. Eating herring is also popular in Western European

(09:53):
New Year's traditions. When Dutch colonists first started arriving to
the US, they bought with them New year cookies, sometimes
called New Year's cakes. They were these super thin, crisp
sugar cookies, sometimes with caraway or lenon or apple ciders.
Sometimes they were cut in fancy shapes or stamped with
fancy shapes. They enjoyed a brief but intense popularity, grazing

(10:17):
the pages of all kinds of cookbooks in the eighteen
forties and fifties, but by the eighteen eighties they had
faded into culinary obscurity. And and for from a Philadelphia
baker for Christmas cookies, read that he had quoted the
real New York New Year's cheese New Year's cheesecakes, I said,
cheesecake without even that's how much New York, New York

(10:39):
is associated with cheesecake. Oh man, Okay, that was a
really interesting it was, and we'll have to examine that
at the date. Okay, okay, now New Year's cakes. The
genuine Knickerbockers of all sizes from a cartwheel to eleven
penny bit um. They, to some confusion about oly cokim

(11:03):
Christmas cakes were sometimes called knickerbockers. O cookin a k. A.
Oly bullen are another holiday donut, and are traditionally made
and eaten on the Year's Eve in both the old
world and the new. Another tradition brought over with the
early Dutch open house. Okay, this is not this is
not a thing that I'm personally familiar with, not outside

(11:25):
of like school open house um, which probably came from this.
At first, this custom was mostly limited to Dutch immigrants
living in New York, but from there it's spread, particularly
in the Northeast. Is basically what it sounds like on
New Year's Day, your house was open for anyone, anyone
to come to coll and you'd have donuts and honey

(11:47):
cakes and cookies on hand for visitors. This practice was
even observed by President George Washington. According to the journal
the U. S. Senator, on January, the first New Year's
after he was inaugurated, George Washington held open house um.
And things kind of got out of hand with this practice. Um,

(12:08):
if you intended to receive company, you would list the
hours you'd be home in the paper. Yeah, makes sense. Sure,
young fellas looking to get drunk would see this and
hit up every half listed drink the provided punch and dash.
People would wander around the streets at the newspaper under
their arm, like looking for free meals. That sounds like

(12:30):
something we would do. I know, I can't. The practice
of listing the open house hours ended as the nineteenth
century came to a close, and you opened your house
only to friends or enemies if you're looking to do
a bit of a reset on your relationship and begin
a new Another day on this tradition had ladies opening

(12:54):
their house to as many gentlemen callers as they could
handle on the first New Year's after the lady of
the house had married. According to etiquette rules of the
time quote, the taste of gentlemen only are to be consulted,
and it is understood that they prefer rather substantial dishes.
None of that lady food. Yeah, ladies. It became increasingly

(13:15):
more common to go out on New Year's Eve in
the twentieth century. One rite up described some of these
events taking place in New York City. At least eight
spots decided that fifteen dollars per person will be about
right for this nominal sum. The lucky patron will be
permitted to sit at a table in a chair on
his own, eat his supper, watch the entertainment, and yell

(13:37):
his head off on the zero hour approaches in case
he can't yell, he will find beside his plate an
infernal machine that will they call the noises he wants.
When agitated in the proper manner, doubtless, he will be
showered with confetti at no extra charge. Of course, if
he should thirst for anything stronger than water, he may
have at it at the usual rates, over and above

(13:59):
the initial fifteen dollars. Fifteen dollars today, Oh, you couldn't
get anywhere, Oh my goodness, nowhere. No New New Year's
celebrations are so expensive. Did you ever do anything like
this or in like the New Year's Did you ever
have any New Year's food traditions? Zero? Absolutely, I grew
up with none of those things. By the time I
was of drinking age, I guess a sparkling wine toast

(14:21):
at midnight became a pretty common thing for me. It's
actually the first thing that I ever drank socially, you know,
like not including like ritualistic wine at passive versader uh,
sparkling wine on New Year's I do really love a
pork and Sara kraut roast, though an ex of mine
turned beyond to that, And oh man, that's it. Just

(14:42):
it tastes like the holidays I don't know, it's nice. Yeah,
well we so this is kind of what the US
has done as far as um New Year's food traditions.
But let's talk about some of the around the world one.
But first a quick break for a word from our sponsor,

(15:10):
and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you. Apart
from the aforementioned jelly donut, beer leaner, or any ring
shaped food like a button cake. Oh my god, is
that why we say ring in the New Year? No, no,
it's not. I had a really brief, brief moment of
pure excitement thinking about it. And now it has to
do with bells, of course. Yeah, but that I mean

(15:32):
cool to think. There are so many New Year's food
traditions around the world, so many, and of course there
are a lot of different dates that the New Year's
can fall on around the world. Even the modern Western calendar,
the Gregorian calendar, which marks New Year's is January one,
only goes back to the fifteen sixties, so you've got

(15:53):
the Lunar New Year or Chinese New Year, which falls
in late winter about February ish. And oh May, maybe
I shouldn't have started with this one. It's like a
lie because We're going to have to do a whole
episode on this. There are so many traditions among so
many cultures that observe this holiday, and every single one
of them is making me hungry right now. Um. The
easiest and most pervasive maybe uncut noodles, symbolizing longevity and

(16:17):
long luck. Yeah uh. There's the Jewish New Year Russiashana,
which falls in the fall like September Ish, and there
are a handful of traditional foods or ingredients really to
celebrate that. There's honey for hopes of a sweet new year, round,
loaves of the egg, bread, holla for the cycle of life,
the head of a fish or lamb for hopes that

(16:38):
will all be at the head of everything to come.
Pomegranates for hopes that the new year will bring new
fruit that's full of seeds or I mean like opportunities.
Yeah yeah. And and then a whole bunch of things
that are puns in Hebrew and or Yiddish. Uh, carrots,
because the Hebrew word for carrot sounds like the word

(16:59):
for decree, so you might eat them in hopes of
removing any negative decrees held against you out there. The
Yiddish word for carrot sounds a bit like the word
for more, so you might eat them in hopes of
increased blessings. There's dates. The Hebrew for date sounds a
bit like the verb to end, so you might eat
them in hopes that your troubles will be finished. Pumpkins

(17:20):
and other winter squash the Hebrew for which sounds like
to cut or rip and like a hominem, meaning to announce,
so you might eat it in hopes that your bad
deeds will be ripped from the pages of history, and
that your good deeds will be announced to all. That'd
be nice, right. Peas and beans the word sounds like
the Hebrew verb to increase, and does can symbolize increased

(17:43):
blessings again. And the word for beat sounds like the
Hebrew for remove or like go away again, symbolizing the
hope that your troubles or enemies will vanish. I love
how you could interpret it in a different way, though, Yeah, well,
well yeah, you're a means well more definitive then. In Japan,

(18:09):
there's a bunch of different things. There's toshikoshi, soba and
okay so On New Year's Eve, some Japanese families eat
toshikoshi soba or year crossing buck wheat noodles. Fresh soba
noodles are are long, symbolizing longevity, and they're also thin
and tender, reflecting the eater's ability to cut through and
overcome any hardships of the previous year. The noodles can

(18:31):
be served hot or cold, and super with dipping sauces
and with garnishes from like sweet fried bean curd to
salty fish cakes too simple green onion. Also mochi and
not just eating these sticky, chewy, glutinous rice cakes. Part
of the tradition is helping make them in this whole
event called mochi suki, which is the pounding of rice

(18:52):
to make the cakes. And if you're doing this the
old fashioned way, you've got someone using a mallet to
pound cooked rice in the big mortar, and someone else
reaching in to turn the mound of rice in between
each down swing of the mallet. And if that sounds
like a crazy dance, it is, yeah. Yeah. But once

(19:12):
the rice is a dough without a trace of any
kind of grain like shapes left, you pull off bits
and shape them into cakes. Some maybe left plain to
be added to sweet or savory soup, and some may
be filled with the sweet filling like red bean paste.
You can find machisuki in places other than Japan, too.
You can check with your local Japanese culture club and
see if you've got one near you. The tradition is

(19:33):
said to stem from the practice of making mochi, which
can keep pretty decently in the time leading up to
New Year's so that you can eat them during the
holiday without making noise in your kitchen which might piss
off the spirits of the kitchen. You also set out
some of this mochi as offerings for your various household
spirits and eat it a couple of weeks later, by
which point it's probably hardened a bit and so consuming

(19:55):
it is symbolic of, you know, toughness or strength during
the coming year. On the post or end of Japanese
New Year's celebrations, you've got a sati riori or New
Year's foods traditionally served to fancy people in fancy jubbacco,
which are these ornate, stackable partitioned boxes sort of similar
to to bento boxes if you're familiar with those, and

(20:16):
a whole lot of different things can go into these.
A there's. Some of the popular things are candied chestnuts
and sweet potatoes, dicon and carrots, salad, candied sardines, herring
row harring again, simmered shrimp, pressed fish cakes, kelp tad
into a fancy little boll very pastiate. Indeed, here's another one.

(20:36):
Remember that field sprine from the top of the episode.
Pigs are such a symbol of luck that in Germany
and Austria, lucky pig shaped confections are sold around New
Year's They're called a gluck Schweine, and although most often
they are made of marzipan, which is sweet almond paste,
they also come in chocolate formats, and Austrians sometimes eat

(20:57):
suckling pig for New Year's dinner. In Italy, Spain and
some other Spanish and Italian speaking countries, grapes are a
major player in New Year's festivities. The Spanish version is
La or the twelve grapes of Luck, and the tradition
goes that you eat one grape at each chime of
the clock at midnight to ensure good luck in each

(21:20):
month of the new year. These grapes are usually thicker
skinned and seedier to what we're used to in the
United States, so sometimes they're peeled and seated before the
final countdown begins. And in Italy the grapes still symbolize prosperity,
but the tradition is to eat as many as possible
come midnight, like in the first minute. Yeah, like like

(21:41):
during those chimes. Kingcake, okay, kincake here in the United
States is mostly associated with Mardi Gras a KSh rover
fat Tuesday, which happens at least a month after New
Year's Day based on the lunar solar calendar that determines
when Easter falls. But even here in the States, kincakes
are available darting on Epiphany, which is the twelfth day

(22:02):
of Christmas a ka January six, and in some Christian
traditions is also called Three Kings Day and celebrates the
visit of the Three Wise Men to the Baby Jesus. Thus,
a bunch of cultures make a King's cake sort of
crown shaped things sometime on or between New Year's and Epiphany,
and these cakes fall into two basic categories. You've got

(22:24):
the French style gillet of flaky puff pastry filled with
stuff like French Japan and topped with more puff pastry
and then the Spanish style sweet yeast bread topped with
candied fruit and or nuts. All of them, though, contain
a bean, coin, nut or other token baked in that
is said to bring luck to whoever finds it. Again,

(22:46):
probably not a few choke on it. Yeah, and they
are all over the heck in place, France, Spain, Latin America, Portugal, Bulgaria, Grease, Cypress, Louisiana,
et cetera. Uh. A few more quick ones that I
ran across that I liked, smashing a pomegranate and the
front door in grace. The more seeds and the fruit,

(23:08):
the more luck you will have. In Turkey, they actually
eat the pomegranate, the idea that doing so will grant
you fertility and abundance. I read in some places that
in Belarus, single women will stand in front of a
pile of corn kernels, and then someone lets a rooster loose,
and the woman the rooster hits to first is going
to be the first to get married. I have questions

(23:31):
about that one, but we'll move on. The Scottish still
do this whole first footing thing, and the tradition is
to bring some whiskey over to a friends after the
midnight toast. So I like this idea, I know. First
footing refers to this idea that the first person to
step over the threshold of your door sets the tone
for the rest of the year. Luck lore tells us

(23:55):
that a tall, brown haired man is the best luck.
Blonde and red hair no good. Yes, And for the
love of God cross your fingers. It's not a woman
or terrible Yeah, you know, And so is doing laundry
on New Year's Day. Apparently someone you care about will

(24:16):
be washed away and die. Some people take it a
step further and don't wash dishes that day either. Another
superstition says you need to leave all the doors open
when midnight strikes so the spirit of the old ear
can leave and let the new one in. On top
of that, you need to make loud noises to scare
away the devil and other spirits. Yes, sure, but back

(24:40):
to food based ones A little mini tangent there. The
minute before midnight on New Year's Even at El Salvador,
you might crack open an egg into a glass of
water and then try to figure out what the shape
the yolk makes is trying to tell you about the
coming year, which I want to do. Yeah. In Ireland,
to vanquished hunger the coming year, you might partake in

(25:01):
the Night of the Big Portion. On New Year's Eve,
you'd bake up this huge cake, smash it, then gather
the crumbs and eat them. On New Year's Day, as
a symbol of your triumph, you'd leave a piece of
buttered bread on your front door. Because of this, New
Year's Day is sometimes called the Day of the Buttered Bread.
I read in some places that kids go around eating

(25:24):
the bread. Okay, okay, yeah that sounds great. I recently
smashed a cake with a hammer and then ate it,
so I am really behind this one. I'm one percent
on board. It was very fun. How did it? What?
It was? For a video I was doing and it
was just so funky. Yeah, I've never tried to I

(25:45):
wouldn't imagine that hammer would have a lot of well
it was a kitchen hammer. Oh okay, like a like
a mallet shape, big one, big one. Okay, it makes
more sense now I'm back with you, okay, perfect. I
was like, what kind of cake? Was it? Frozen? Going off?
Ice cream cake? Um? So those are a few, Oh yeah,

(26:05):
there's a lot more out there, and hey, if we
missed your favorite, then right in and tell us this
probably covers like some of the big ones, but yeah,
absolutely let us know, yes, please do um so those
are around the world. When we get back, we're going
to talk about science. Yeah, but first quick break for

(26:26):
a word from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you sponsor. Okay,
science of luck, take it away, Lauren, now, yeah, just kidding. Yeah,

(26:46):
although although you know, the human brain and our sense
of luck is is pretty fascinating. There's a whole theory
about the hot hand bias, in which we are primed
to think that if we've done this thing and gotten
a good result, then clearly doing it again will get
perhaps an even better result. That's why people play slot machines.
Monkeys are also susceptible to this, by the way, so

(27:07):
it's not only it's not only us. Like primates in
general A really like slot machines and b are totally
convinced that if you do something and it has a
good result, then it's great to do all the time,
like a lucky shirt. Almost, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I kind
of want to make a feast of all of these
things and see what happens. Aside from a stomach ache. Yeah,

(27:27):
and around the world of New Year's food editions, but
midnight would be chaos, perhaps in a hilariously fun way.
Twelve grapes, you get your pickled hair and you're smashing
a pomegrant, you're smashing some bread, reading what my egg
yook says, drinking whiskey. I think it could be a
fun chaotic thing to try. Yeah, oh man, okay, maybe
for next year. And we talked about some mostly almost

(27:50):
completely good luck foods, but there are some bad luck foods.
Oh yeah. We ran into a few of these. One
of the that we ran across is lobster. Yes, this
is a food to be avoided on New Year's according
to some because they move backwards, and this could mean
setbacks for you and you're coming year if you're foolish
enough to eat some on New Year's. Maybe more research

(28:12):
is needed. I suggest a case study where researcher eats
lobster every day of the year and documents any rises
are falls. I'm like, oh yeah, we'd have to toss
it out immediately. Another bad look food chicken, and I
love the reasoning vine is when they have wings and
they could fly away, just like your luck if you

(28:32):
eat chicken. Also, they scratch backwards, like you said earlier,
and you don't want to move backwards, or you don't
want to start from scratch, or have only scratch for change,
multiple puns. There's a lot going on, and I didn't
make any of these up. These are reason people cited.
I also read that this is one of the reasons

(28:52):
why we eat turkey at the end of the year,
because you're bearing the past. But I would say that's
retroactively applied. I think you might be bringing a little
bit more logic than you that's true. I'm bringing logic
to a luck fight. That's New Year's foods. Yeah. Um,
but we have a lot of you answered the call

(29:16):
yes and sent us beautiful toasts. Thank you so much.
So Yeah. So we've got a bunch of them that
we are going to read here. Yes, the first is
from gen She wrote, I just finished listening to the
podcast on toasting, and the discussion on toasting traditions brought
me back to my days as an officer at the
Cadet Core of the Canadian Armed Forces. Formal mess dinners

(29:37):
are a very important part of being an officer, so
much that you are instructed and tested on mess etiquette
during basic training. Working at the Cadet summer training centers
on military bases across Canada, I intend many mess dinners
with a mix of officers and and CEOs from the
Air Force, Army and Navy get to see a lot
of toasting traditions, both official and unofficial. The official round

(29:58):
of toasting begins after the may A meal with the
passing of the porch. The port is always passed to
the left and different branches of military have different ways
of passing the bottle. The Air Force passes through the
air never letting the bottle touch the table. The Army
slams the bottle onto the table as hard as possible,
and the Navy passes the bottle under the table simulating

(30:19):
the sea. As you can imagine, this makes for quite
the spectacle. At mixed branch dinners, the official toasting always
begins with the President of the Mess Committee toasting ladies
and gentlemen, the Queen of Canada, followed by the Vice
p and m C. Madame and Monsieur Lauren du Canada,
the Queen of Canada, and of course is the Queen
of England and the Commonwealth. Another important tradition is that

(30:41):
one must stand when one's branch marches played, holding one's glass,
often while singing along and toasting at the end of
the song. As Air Force folks go one step further,
and those of us who have earned our pilot wings
will stand on our chairs, posting our status above all
the non pilots in the room. Pilots are known their
modesty and humility. Mia or Maya wrote in with a

(31:04):
story for the toasting episode. Senior year of college. My
friends and I of course got all nostalgic for the year,
so we made a new rule that applied to every
time any of us got together in drink, so Friday nights, parties, school,
host graduation events, anything. The rule was that when the
end of whatever we got together for came, we would
nominate one person to give the final toast, which means

(31:26):
that the one person, usually the most intoxicated person, would
be giving a toast for the evening. Usually these toasts
ended up leading to thanking people for friendships, calling people
out for random stuff that happened during our four years
at school, or just random spurts of whatever they needed
to say. It was a weird tradition but a great
and fun way to wrap our college experience up. My
close friend group was pretty big, about twelve people, but

(31:49):
every six months we still get together on a group Skype.
And yes, of course everyone has a drink and at
the end is a toast. Sounds like a nice tradition,
Emily wrote, as far as toasting goes, I have a
friend who frequently hosts parties at his house and the
first drink of the night is always two boobs. It's
simple and pretty silly, but it's nice to have that tradition.

(32:11):
My roommate and I are trying to come up with
the toast for the first drink at our house, but
so far we haven't found anything quite as good. Also,
my favorite toast is saliente, which is the Irish form
of good health. Molly sent us this. I wanted to
weigh in with a toast I didn't hear in your episode, though,
which kind of surprised me. And it's absence the Jewish
toast lahayam to life and maybe it's me growing up

(32:33):
in a half Jewish home, but lahayam is one I've
heard most of my life, and the modern connotation to
me has always been very endearing. It's something we say
to toast to long life, and to quote the musical
Fiddler on the Roof, if our good fortune never comes,
here's to whatever comes. So drink Lahaium to life. Doing
some research, though, I found a somewhat more insidious background.
According to dot org, after the judges of the Jewish

(32:56):
court would deliberate on capital cases, they would turn one
last time to those whom they sent to question the
witnesses and ask for their opinion. If they opined the
plaintiff should live, they would reply Lahayam to life. If, however,
it was death, they would reply Lama to death. If
the judges found the defendant guilty, he would be given
very strong wine in order to diminish the pain of

(33:16):
the execution. At least people went out after a stiff
drink in those cases. True. Yes, oh thank you, Molly.
I'm sorry that I forgot that one. Caroline sent us
this classic. Here's to those who wish as well. Those
who don't can go to hell. Andy wrote it on Twitter.
I have family friends, and the whole family will say
Nasa dro Vier. The mother's family is Polish, except the

(33:39):
dad always responds nice driveways. It gets me every time
Christie sent is this one. Her mom taught her Here's
to you and here's to me and hopes we never disagree.
But if we go to hell with you and by God,
here's to me. Uh. James on Twitter gave us may
you get what you need and never what you deserve,

(34:01):
which actually closely mirrors something that my friends and I say,
which is, oh goodness, it's uh. We may not get
what we want, we may not get what we need,
just as long as we don't get what we deserve.
I love it from Aaron, Uh, just finish your toasting
episode and want to let you know a small audition
modification we employ in Wisconsin. I'm guessing this depends on

(34:23):
who you're with, but as I graduated from the u W,
I frequently find myself in the company of fellow Badgers.
Almost every toast, generally an honor of one of the
college sports teams is concluded with and on Wisconsin, a
clink and glass taf on the table before you drink.
I found it interesting that there's not a solid reason
for why this came about. But as my husband is

(34:44):
fairly superstitious when it comes to Badger athletics, I won't
deviate for fear of being blamed for a loss. Wise,
Mike sent us an audio file first other voice on
our show. It's just so exciting. Take it away, Mike, Hello,
Annie and Laura. It's Mike, fan of this show. Anyways,
I guess i'd bring in the Navy toast for consideration.

(35:06):
It's it's an old toast. I don't know how much
it has to do with the modern Navy, since it
tends to be more of a beer drinking navy than
it is a rum drinking navy, but we got it
for the British and it still sticks around. But anyways
that it goes like this, it's may your ancor be tight,
may your cork be loose, may your rumb be spiced,
and may your compass be true. And there's different ways

(35:26):
of delivering that. I tend to like the quick up
down rhythm one that get it over with quick and
let's get to the festivities. But it's a may your
ancor be tight, your cork loose, your RUMs spiced, and
your compass true. And there's other ways of doing it too.
You could have kind of ah the old church one
where the speaker he gives the verses of one and three,

(35:48):
and the crew gives the verses of three and four.
That's a kind of like a reply type thing. But anyways,
I thought I would bring that in. It's it's an
old toast. It's a it's a good one. It makes
its rounds once in a while through the navy from
Jordan's here's two tall ships and too small ships, and
to all the ships on the sea, but the best
ships of friendships. So here's to you and me. Oh yeah, Lilia,

(36:12):
or perhaps Liliah. I hope I'm not mispronouncing your name
too badly. It wrote in about the toasting tradition in
Austria of not clinking your glass. The tradition applies to
beer in when the revolution failed against the Habsburgs and
thirteen were executed. Supposedly, Austrians celebrated in Vienna by toasting
and clinking their beer glasses. You can say a toast,
but not clink your beer glass. In my family, we

(36:35):
tapped the beer three times on the table. Cheers to
a happy New Year from Jared. My wife's family is Bohemian,
check and Polish, and no one is certain from which
culture this phrase comes from, but everyone assumes that it
is likely a mispronunciation of one of the languages that
no one in her family speaks any longer. They could
be wrong, of course, and that it is in actuality

(36:56):
total nonsense, but that doesn't stop everyone from carrying on
the tradition. When raising a glass for a toast, everyone
shouts in unison and he typed it out phonetically. Here
we go, yep, tom screegee, and a hoya hoya. I
love that it could be total nonsense. Yeah, Syllable in
the City wrote in on Twitter. Afrikaans, we often toast
with laval varjeval. Let it fall where it wants. I'm

(37:19):
not entirely sure of the origin, but probably you wouldn't
have to apologize for spilling, as that's the drink's desire.
Fellow I wanted to Hillary on Facebook wrote in regards
to the toasting episode, my grandmother's favorite saying has always
been to keep the love in the loving cup. When
you're wrong, admitted when you're right, shut up. I love that. Yeah,
that's great, And Kristen sent us on Twitter to the

(37:42):
men who love us, to the men who have yet
to meet us, and to the sorry bastards who lost
us made this be our year friends and I made
it up in college tests sent in one for us
with an audio clip. Hey, I'll love your podcast. Um,
here to toast for you. I'm half Columbian. I'm re
learning Spanish again now, so I'm going to try these out.
I'm sorry for my shoddy Spanish. Um. The first one

(38:04):
that I always heard growing up was st Health, money,
and love. The other one is arriva abajo, which means
up down center in so you raise your glass up,
you lower it down, you put it to every you

(38:24):
shoot it in the middle to everybody in the center,
and then throw means you drink it. So up jail
and sent her a drink. Um. I always like that one.
That made me crack up when I was a kid.
So I hope that helps and I'll talk to you
guys later. By love the podcast. By yes, thank you
so much. Everybody sent in these toasts. Yeah. Also, UM

(38:46):
shout out to a couple of people who, when I
asked for toasts on Twitter, gave us a couple of
toast puns. Existentialist on Assist said that their favorite toast
was French, and Carol said, I have toast with peanut
butter and jelly for breakfast every mo morning. But I
do like a fine avocado toast for New Year's I
might have some brishetta on toasted piguette, and Allison wrote,

(39:06):
here's to bread, because without bread, we would not have toast. Oh,
y'all are our people. Yes, all of y'all are our people. Though, Yes,
thank you. Yeah, Toast funds Real Toast. If you're listening
to this before New Year's whenever your New Year's, maybe
Happy New Year's to you, and maybe you've got plenty

(39:27):
of toast to choose from. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you'd
like to write to us, you can. Our email is
food Stuff at how stuff works dot com. We're also
on social media. We're on Facebook and Twitter at food
stuff hs W. We're also on Instagram at food Stuff.
Thank you so much to our super producer Dylan Fagan,
who is raising a glass thanks to y'all for listening.

(39:49):
Happy New Year, and we hope that lots more good
things are coming your way